Fewer Worcester residents being fined for failing to shovel sidewalks

WORCESTER — At 6 feet of snow and counting, this snowfall season is keeping pace, practically flake for flake, with last season's prodigious accumulations.

But for reasons that aren't entirely clear, one non-meteorological measure of the snowfall season is trending oddly far behind last season.

City police have hit sidewalk shoveling scofflaws with far fewer citations and fines so far this season, records show.

The law requires property owners to clear a 4-foot-wide path within 10 hours after the snowfall ends.

The drop in citations could be caused by a number of factors such as better compliance with the law or, perhaps, fewer people calling the city to report uncleared sidewalks.

Police Chief Gary J. Gemme noted that there's still more than a month of possibly snowy weather to go this season, which complicates the comparison.

But even if the number and amount of fines handed out so far doubled by the end of March, those amounts would still be significantly lower than last season.

During the cold months from November 2012 through the end of March 2013, the city issued 413 fines for unshoveled sidewalks. The $75-per-day fines added up to $30,750, of which $22,455 worth were paid, according to figures from the city Treasurer's Office.

Compare those numbers to this snowfall season so far, from the beginning of November through last Thursday.

During the current season, the city has issued 106 fines totaling just under $8,000, a bit more than half of which have been paid so far.

Chief Gemme noted that some tickets issued this season haven't been processed yet, while others haven't yet been accounted for because of pending appeals.

The number of citations and amount of fines would have to triple by the end of March to equal last season's amounts.

Complaints of uncleared sidewalks called in to the Department of Public Works' customer service hot line are checked out by police officers assigned to a special detail, Chief Gemme said in a written statement.

"Overall, the officers assigned to the detail report that they have seen an increase in compliance with the unshoveled sidewalk ordinance," he said.

The city received 1,041 sidewalk snow complaints all of last season, which took officers a total of 252 hours to check out, according to police. So far this season, with about six weeks to go, officers have spent 130 hours looking into 648 complaints.

When citations and fines fail to get property owners to shovel their sidewalks, the city sends a local contractor to do the work. The current contractor, Worcester County Seal Coating and Salt Inc., has been sent out to clear sidewalks at 50 locations so far this season, police said.